BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) - After serving 27 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, Valentino Dixon is now a free man.
Dixon, 48, was convicted in 1992 of second-degree murder after the August 10, 1991 shooting death of 17-year-old Torriano Jackson near Louie's Hot Dog Restaurant on the corner of Bailey and East Delavan Avenues in the City of Buffalo. Dixon insisted over the years that he was never the man who killed Jackson and also injured Jason's brother, Aaron, and bystander John Sullivan.
Lamarr Scott told WGRZ-TV in 1991 confessed to the murders in the days following the shooting and even wrote letters to police and the district attorney's office admitting to it. However, Scott recanted his statement at the grand jury proceeding, citing threats from prosecutors.
No evidence directly tied Dixon to the murders, though Erie County District Attorney John Flynn insisted that Dixon is not an innocent man because he brought the uzi used in the killing.
"If Mr. Dixon has told the truth about what happened 27 years ago, we wouldn't be here today, probably," Flynn said. "Mr. Dixon insisted all along that (he) was in the store the whole time...buying a beer, (he) wasn't outside. (He) had nothing to do with nothing. If Mr. Dixon would have said 27 years ago 'Alright, I didn't do the shooting here but Lamarr Scott did the shooting and I brought the gun and Lamarr Scott used my gun for the shooting'...we wouldn't be here today."
Despite his exoneration on the murder, attempted murder, and assault charge, his conviction on criminal possession of a weapon was upheld. However, the maximum penalty for a weapon's charge is 20 years, meaning he would have been released in 2011 instead of on Wednesday.
